God With a Hairbrush

Dwellers Alayna, Alex, and Brady at a YoungLife Gala

One of my favorite books in high school was A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, by Michael Dorris.  It’s a story told by three native American women: a daughter, her mother, and her great aunt, and the three different perspectives are woven together in a narrative braid.  Thematically, it draws from the struggles of modern native Americans, what it means to be a woman, what it means to overcome addictions, and how we pass over our lives to those we love.  This week, I witnessed the amazing way God is braiding the lives of us followers together, in powerful and surprising ways. 

This story, though, has four women: two of our Dwellers, Alex and Alayna, a homeless young mother who I’ll call Andrea, and a teenage Discover participant who I’ll call Alice.

Not long after arriving from Plum, Pennsylvania, Alex was walking into the Hollywood Trader Joe’s and saw Andrea sitting outside with a sign that read, “pregnant hungry homeless.”  Alex hadn’t had much experience yet with the homeless, but felt compelled to reach out.  She sat down and talked to Andrea for awhile, exchanging phone numbers, and Alex offered to help with calling assistance agencies.   About a week later, the two met for pupusas and Alex got to meet Andrea's husband, Jake.  Time flew, and Alex realized she needed to be getting along to her Bible study, but something tugged at her to invite Andrea and Jake.  Much to her surprise, they decided to join her. 

So began Andrea’s part of this story.  She was 6 months pregnant, and she and her husband were currently homeless.  Originally from the Midwest, they were struggling to get their lives stable before the baby would be born.  Andrea’s greatest fear, understandably so, was that the baby would be taken from her as a ward of the State if she and Jake were unable to find a good place and good work.  That night, at the Bible study, they were welcomed and embraced, and when the couple ran out of a money a few days later, the Bible study pooled enough money together to cover the cost of a hotel room for a full week.

It was great, but obviously only temporary.  Andrea and Jake also started to visit the 5846 Gregory community, and Alex’s roommate and fellow Dweller, Alayna, from Pierre, South Dakota, got to know them.  She was becoming aware of programs through PATH Achieve Glendale, her agency placement, that might be able to help the young couple when the hotel room funds dried up.  It took time, and patience, as Alayna was new to all of this herself.  But everything would eventually line up, and Andrea, Jake, and their new little one are now staying at the shelter in Glendale as they work towards self-sufficiency, together.

When Alice first showed up at 5846 Gregory last Sunday evening, it was clear she was highly clever with an off-beat sense of humor, the first to chime in during group discussions.  Alice came as a Discover participant from one of our most regular partnerships, a school in Arizona for troubled teenage girls.  This school is not specifically Christian, so the leaders ask us to be sensitive to the girls' diversity of faith backgrounds and not lead our Scripture-based lessons.  We accommodate, and pray that God will still use us in just the right way.  Alice was always a jokester, always the first with a snappy quip in any situation, yet seemed to carry something quite heavy, as if the sarcasm was a defense mechanism.

After a week of service learning and hearing testimonies of homeless folks and former gang members, Alice opened up during our Thursday night closing discussion.  As it turns out, Alice and her classmates had served at PATH Achieve Glendale that very day, and actually met Andrea and Jake.  As Alice is recounting her story, she suddenly wells up with tears and the room goes silent.  When she gathers herself, a full minute later, she explains that she always thought babies were gross, booger-y and stinky, and vowed to herself to never, “reproduce.”  And yet, that day at the shelter, Alice was overwhelmed with a desire to hold Andrea and Jake’s baby, still quite small at 2 months old.  Alice was struck by the strength of emotion as she held this baby, and after a few moments, Andrea quietly looked up at Alice and said, “you will make an incredible mother someday.”

Alice admits that, for the first time, she actually believes it, no longer afraid of babies, and still wiping tears away, feels like she’d truly like to become a mother.  And then, later that night, Alice writes DOOR a note in response to a general question asking if she experienced hope while here in Los Angeles.  She writes, “I lost faith in God a long, long time ago.  In a nutshell, it’s back and ready for action!”

Before saying goodbye to our friends from Arizona

Alex didn’t know her actions would affect Alice.  Alayna didn’t know if she’d be able to get Andrea into the shelter.  But working to live more like Jesus, to step out in faith while depending more on God, an overlap and peaceful interconnectedness can occur, much like braiding hair.  God can take all that is messy, all that is tangled, all that we’d wish to hide under a hat or somewhere even darker, and make something lovely.   Alice also had no idea how much her revelation would affect her classmates, affect her teachers, affect me.  But God did.  God does.  Amen.  - Matthew Schmitt

Finding Space, by Robert

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. -Genesis 1:31


Finding solitude in Los Angeles can be difficult. But, it is certainly necessary.

Here, there is a deluge of media. Everybody wants your attention and, more importantly, your dollars. I spend a good portion of my time riding shotgun in a minivan scouring the streets for people experiencing homelessness. An unfortunate side effect of this isbillboards. It's very common to see between five and eight thousand large, bold, scandalous advertisements at each of the intersections of Hollywood and Vine and Hollywood and Highland, and more in a short stretch heading east out of West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip. These aren't the only locations. There are advertisements on the sides of buses, on bus benches, on cars, painted on buildings, and on all the major roadways; there are men handing out fliers on the boulevard, painted helicopters flying stuntmen along the beach, and I've even watched skywriting off my back porch. In Los Angeles, in Hollywood, everyone is trying to get you to look at them. 

And, unlike home, these billboards and screaming advertisements aren't to tell you there's a Wendy's on the right at exit 60 or for JR's Cigar World in Burlington. No, most likely these billboards are suggesting that you watch this movie, that television show, or buy this shirt that that model is barely wearing. Or, they're screaming 'Diets don't work, call 1-800-GET-THIN and get LAP-BAND today!' More recently, they are love letters from Ken begging to get the passion back with Barbie.

It's a culture where  your barista and your burger flipper know they're better than you and let their attitudes show it. Everyone is busy, on the go, trying to figure out how they can use anyone else to get a step up the ladder, and they're either in 'the business' or trying to get into it. Or, at least, that's the way it often seems.

Finding refuge, finding time to spend with God is vital and it's hard. This was highlighted by a solitude retreat that my housemates and I went on at the end of January. We went together to a monastery of Benedictine Monks in the desert an hour or so north of Los Angeles and spent the day in silence and mostly apart from each other. Admittedly, I spent a fair amount of time reading Mark Twain's autobiography (Volume One) and a long hour or two napping, but at the end of the day I was in a place where I felt ready to hear God speak (and wishing that the day would last just a little longer). Perhaps the most impacting part of the day was during the time I spent creeping through the dusty hills along a path constructed to take you through Christ's journey to Calvary and resurrection. Towards the end of this path, there is a cross erected in a clearing about halfway up a hill overlooking the abbey with a statue of Jesus, crafted with pieces of twisted metal, nailed to it. There, I sat for an hour or so watching the sun settle on the horizon and mulling over my life. It is times like these, times of silence and in the beauty of God's creation, where I tend to see how God has worked in my life in both the hard and the easy times.

So, how to find this in the city? I have taken to riding my bicycle. When I was in high school, I used to ride my bike around Odell School Road and through the pasture, among other places. But, since the accident, I stopped riding. When I moved to Hollywood in September, I saw that, without a car, cycling would be the most convenient mode of transportation. So, I taught myself to ride again in a span of about 30 minutes spread over two afternoons. I quickly realized that I would need a bigger bicycle than was already available at the house (after all, my legs are pretty long), so I went out and purchased a beautiful twenty-one speed cream colored hybrid (hybrid in the sense that it's sort of a merging between a road bike and a mountain bike) and I've been using it to piddle around town ever since.

Since January, I have made it a goal to bike to Malibu which is about a 65 mile round trip, so the past few weekends, I've been building up my endurance with 30 to 40 mile rides with some scenic stopovers scheduled in. This past Monday I did a 30 mile loop past Runyon Canyon (a popular hiking spot) taking Mulholland Scenic Highway through the hills before drifting down the north side of the hills into North Hollywood and rounding back home through Griffith Park. 

It's a pretty amazing ride. Mulholland is above the stop-and-go of LA and provides a beautiful view over the sprawl and of the distant mountains. Going into North Hollywood was a blast. I took Coldwater Canyon down the hill. It's a steep road with a number of sharp curves and it was so thrilling to come down it as fast I felt safe. I started laughing about halfway down the hill and for a solid 10 minutes afterward. I am so grateful for that, just a silly hill and two wheels to coast on. I felt...on top of the world...and we all know Who likes to sit up there.

PrayersBe thankful today. Be thankful for God, his love, and his creation of this universe in its vastness and in its specificity.